When a Mom Goes Back to Work

By Sonya Spillmann

She sits at a desk in the basement with her computer open. It’s taken months to get her here, to this desk, yes. But really, to this decision. To this semblance of action. She clicks into her Documents file and types ‘résumé’ into the search bar. 

No results. 

She takes one long deep breath and searches again, this time adding her initials.

But again, nothing. 

A sip of coffee, a bite of her lower lip. Surely it’s here somewhere. She gazes sideways, wondering where on earth it might be. Then her mind, unbridled, again asks the question it’s circled around the last handful of years: Do I really want to go back to work? 

Her answer lingers in the air, a volatile amalgamation of yes and no.

She knows this is a privilege, despite the painful financial hit, this ability to have “stepped away from” her last job. This was the job for which she last needed a proper written out résumé—watch as she pauses to count off the years on her fingers—one, two, three, oh my goodness, seven years ago. 

She worked weekend nights as a nurse with a ‘perfect schedule’ for a mom who wanted to be home for her kids. Monday through Friday: she was a stay at home mom making chicken nuggets, pushing a stroller through the park, sipping caffeine during story time at the coffee shop, and enforcing a strict 1 p.m. naptime. But 7 p.m. till 7 a.m. on the weekends: she was a working mom on her feet for twelve, sometimes fourteen hours, measuring brain pressures, hanging blood, titrating IV drips and managing the aftermath of car accidents, falls, and violent altercations—all while her kids slept peacefully in footie pajamas just a few miles away.  

Yet as the years went on, her stomach began to tie itself in knots days before her shifts. And her heart would pound when she drove away from her family to the hospital. She knew it was time to quit a year before she did. It took a kick in the chest by a psychotic patient to finally say enough. 

And then, for the next year, she felt lost. Friday nights would come and her body would again tighten, holding its breath and stomach as if in protection. You don’t work there anymore, she’d have to remind herself, just like a mother would whisper to sooth a scared child. It’s okay, she’d say to her family. Go have pizza with your family. She still has the occasional bad dream. 

She always said she “stepped away” from nursing because she wasn’t ready to make her choice definitive. But she never expected she would be able to stay away for this long—long enough to pivot her interests and even make some money from them; long enough to wonder if what she used to do was not the end of a chapter, but the end of a book; long enough to lose a résumé. 

The sound of her youngest children’s feet on creaking wood floors signal the start of her day, the résumé will have to wait. She blows out her candle, grabs her cup of coffee, and walks to kiss her children good morning. 

//

She finds a paper (paper!) copy of her résumé a week later. She Googles: résumé to see what’s new and what she needs to update. At her age, education is no longer as important as experience.